19. The Ghettos were Rescued

The Rescue Of The « General Ghetto“

By the end of December, Raoul Wallenberg moved into an appartment in Pest. He wished to be closer to the people. To avoid abduction he was permanently on the move. On the 23rd of December 1944 Eichmann and his troops left Budapest to escape from the Russians. Before Eichmann´s departure he possible ordered the elimination of the „General Ghetto“, a total of 70.000 Jews. Szalai, a member of the Arrow Cross Party, who helped Wallenberg toward the end of the war, later described before a postwar People´s Tribunal, that he (Szalai) appeald to General Gerhard Schmidhuber, as dynamite and armed troops surrounded the ghetto in preparation for ist comple destruction: “I warned him that according to Wallenberg´s communication, if he did not prevent this crime he would be called to account as a murderer.” The massacre was called off.

Preventing The Disolvement Of The « Internationl Ghetto“

By the beginning of January the „International Ghetto“ in which the protected Jews lived, were due to be dissolved. Some Jews were already transferred to the overcrowded „General Gehtto“. Wallenberg was successful in putting an end to the resettlement. On the 3rd of January 1945, Raoul Wallenberg expressed himself in a memorandum on the most important German military officials in Budapest: „The Legation obtained information that a furher 35.000 inhabitants of the International Ghetto were to be sent to the „General Ghetto“ on foot. This plan must be regarded, from all human consideration to be totally insane and bestial. The Royal Legation knows of no such plan having ever been attemted by a Government of any civilized state in history.“
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